Naming
a band is something you don’t always do with ease. Conflicting
interests within a band is a common point of dispute. A name that may
have seemed perfect at one point, may years down the road seem less
suitable. The many miles a band may have walked during its natural evolution
may in practice have rendered a name obsolete.

A
name can also become a burden, a reason for people aware of nothing
beyond the sphere of an image to shuffle you into a corner, a corner
that may prove very hard to escape from.

If
your intention is to reach out to an audience around the world, the
name for your band could be chosen for several reasons. You can for
instance pick a name because it is pronounced the same way - and has
the same meaning - in more languages than one. You can also pick a name
for it’s visual effect or simply because it’s easy to remember.

It
can be a name that reflects the lyrical content of your songs. It can
represent a view, an interest or a passion for a specific time, place
or dimension. Or it may be a name one can easily tie to religion, history,
legends or mythology. Then there’s always the option to pick a
neutral name. Another issue is making sure you’ve picked a name
that’s not only great for your band, but also vacant.

Alzbéta
Báthory - the bloodcountes. Also referred to as Erzsebet Bathory.
Born 7th of August 1560 and dead 21st August 1614. She gave the band
its name.

The
three young men that made up the first BATHORY line-up, didn’t
have any ambitions whatsoever of ever “making it”. There
were no thoughts of record deals or concerts. The fun was all in meeting
up usually twice a week and perform original material and whatever covers
they could agree on playing.

The
few occasions when people were invited to come down the BATHORY rehearsal
place for a quick listen, the comments would even be of the “-…you’ll
never get a record contract or a gig!” sort. Quit simply,
they just wouldn’t go anywhere playing that kind of unheard-of
brutal noise.

And
hence it would seem picking the very right name for the trio really
wasn't all that important. But truth is, right from day one basically,
there was a name that both said it all and yet was as neutral
as it needed to be.

The
name BATHORY was short, easy to remember and reflected the dark content
of the lyrics written even at that early stage. And should anybody want
to now, there was an interesting story behind the name.

But
truth is, no deep reading of ancient stories ever settled the choice
of name, at least not initially. Tits and blood did, to be frank.

-
I went to London with a friend about a year prior to forming the
band. In the London dungeon - sort of the wax cabinet of horror
- there was this one display built to resemble a medieval chamber.
In the middle of the room, reclined in a bathtub filled with blood,
we spotted this naked female figure. Above the tub, some three or
four equally naked female figures were hanging up side down suspended
in chains, throats cut and blood flowing.

-
If you’re 15-16 years old and already into horror stories,
occult movies and the dark side of things, that’s a pretty
impressive sight. And the amount of tits and ass on display certainly
didn’t make the scene any less memorable or less impressive,
even though it was all wax. So I made damn sure to remember the
name of what was apparently a countess.

Apparently
Mrs. Bathory too had a way with interns... This particular portrait
is apparently a somewhat more modern replica of a long lost portrait.
But it is supposedly also the most accurate portrait of the infamous
countess.

After
looking the bloodcountess up, some more serious reading into the subject
followed. Her life story being as close to a BATHORY lyric as can be,
the name was of course perfect for the band. The idea was, should anybody
want to know, there was a story behind the name. However, should nobody
care about no story, the name was short, simple and neutral enough and
thus perfect.

-
I later learned there was this middle-aged man named Pavel Bathory
listed in the phone book for Stockholm. So I called him up by chance
to see if he might be related in any way to the ol' countess herself.

- The very second I brought the countess up, he began to holler
over the phone like a lunatic. It turned out "hundreds" of fans purportedly had called him up over the past couple of years
asking the very same question.

- He hung up on me in a flash and I decided not to bother the old
man anymore. So I never did find out whether he actually was related
to the countess or not. Or why he had not arranged to have his number
classified...

When
UNDER THE SIGN OF THE BLACK MARK was released in May
1987, BATHORY had decided to celebrate the old bloodcountess by dedicating
to her memory a specially written track. Considering the topic, one
might think that "Woman of Dark Desires" ought to be one of
the favorite tracks of the fans, but truth is it just barely missed
making it into top 25 when the material for the two first JUBILEUM volumes was compiled in 1992 for the up and coming BATHORY 10th anniversary.
And since it had already been decided that the choice of the fans was
going to decide which tracks should end up on these two 10th anniversary
releases, "Woman of Dark Desires" had to be left out for lack
of votes. To the dismay of several old fans one should ad.

Another
portrait of the Bloodcountess. What a pity they decided to wall the
girl in.
We will never find out if all that blood bathing had any effect on beauty
and life at all...

A common mistake made on numerous websites and elsewhere, is the mentioning
of several other "earlier" names of the band. This is not
correct and has become another BATHORY legend proven hard to kill. And
it doesn't seem to matter how many times Quorthon tries to correct the
story.

There
never was any other name for the band but BATHORY. There was,
however, some names flung about down the rehearsal place one day, names
that were tasted for about five minutes.

There
never was a band called Countess Bathory, Elizabeth Bathory,
Nosferatu, Satan or even Natas. Quorthon persisted that it had to be
BATHORY right from the start, and consequently no other name was ever
carried by the band.

On
lyric sheets, homemade stickers and assorted paraphernalia, the band
logo would now be drawn on virtually everything using plain black marker
pens of various thickness. Initially the logo was in the Koch Fraktur
font style. All in an effort to mimic the most common version of the
Black Sabbath logo. But within weeks Old English was chosen
as the best looking font, and the name would for ever after be written
in capitals.

Yet,
for a short period of time between 1993 and 1996, a logo known as the
pointed edge logo would be designed to mark the second decade
of BATHORY. Appropriately the logo would first come into use when the
first album of the second decade - REQUIEM - was released.

But
the pointed edge logo was never favored by any of the fractions
of BATHORY's audience and consequently dropped in favor of the old
and tried logo.

-
By that time we really did feel a need to change things a bit to
really mark a new decade and hopefully a fresh start for BATHORY.
There was a need to escape from that bombastic and epic metal corner
that we basically had painted ourselves into at that time.

- After having spent several weeks in the studio during the summer
of 1992, listening back to all the old tracks that would be re-mastered
for the first two JUBILEUM volumes, that need for
something new and fresh was all the more apparent.

- We thought of designing a new logo to make visual that change.
And since we had already decided on going back to more basic and
brutal stuff musically - and more socially aware lyrics with contemporary
themes - a logo looking less like a traditional Black Metal or Epic
Metal logo was chosen.

- So I'd cut a logo out in a thin sheet of black leather using a
razorblade. And that was used as a template for the pointed
edge logo. But neither it nor much of the stuff that we did
during the 90's, would lock with the vast majority of our audience
at the time. The stuff we had created on record during the second
half of the 80's was still too dear to a great portion of our audience
for something new like a pointed edge logo or socially
aware lyrics and modern hardcore to be readily accepted by too many.

- Today, though, both the pointed edge logo and the initially
hated REQUIEM and OCTAGON albums
are catching on, being reviewed in a different light altogether
these days.

The
name Bathory - and the images of blood and horror it may bring about
- may have suited the Nordic and Viking theme rather badly. One might
think it impossible for an act named after the old Bloodcountess, to
be able to make the transition from Black Metal to Nordic Metal in under
two years and still be worthy a hundred per cent credibility.

-
We never thought about that. And I have never heard anybody bring
the issue up. The name reminded at least me of where we came from
and where it all started. With a name that was absolutely neutral,
it might perhaps have been a more casual transition, but then tell
me one name for a band that is.

- By the time we did albums like HAMMERHEART and
TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, that style, the production,
sound and attitude of our late 80's and early 90's was so synonymous
with us anyway, we could have been called Lucifer's Dickwead and
still be absolutely credible producing stuff like "Shores in
Flames" or "Bond of Blood".